In conversation with Cin Cin’s David Toscano The Italian Bar & Kitchen…

It’s an exciting time for our client Cin Cin. After a successful first year at their location in Vine Street, Brighton, they are opening a second, larger restaurant in Western Road, Hove.

The Italian Bar & Kitchen in Vine Street has already established itself as a leading restaurant in the area. In its inaugural year Cin Cin made it into the Good Food Guide and achieved the highest new entry at the Brighton’s Best Restaurant Awards when they were named 6th best restaurant in Brighton.

We went along to interview their founder, David Toscano, about his success and the exciting year ahead.

It’s been an exciting first year for Cin Cin and we hear that 2018 is about to get even better?! Tell us about the new restaurant opening in January?

We really have had an amazing first year at Vine St but it’s time to spread our wings and raise the bar a little so we’ll be opening in Hove next month! We are building it now and every day I go in there, I get a little more excited for what we are about to bring to the food scene of our great city.

What’s the same and what’s different about the new place?

It will be a larger restaurant, it really couldn’t be any smaller than Vine St could it?! That said we have worked really hard to come up with a design that will be instantly recognisable as a Cin Cin restaurant so it will still be casual Italian dining on stools around a u-shaped bar with an open kitchen. But we will also have a private dining room for parties and events so we can bring the joy of Italian feasting to groups of our fantastic customers.

An illustration of the Western Road shop front

Will your head chef, Jamie Halsall, be based at Western Road or Vine Street?

Jamie is very excited about the new restaurant, sometimes I feel like I’m only designing it to make him happy! But seriously, we are very conscious that people love Vine St and of course we do too, so one thing that is very important to our whole team is that we do not leave Vine St behind or let our standards drop there. So for that reason Jamie will be working across both sites with his expanded team of chefs so we can maintain and hopefully raise the standard of Italian cooking that Brighton has come to expect from Cin Cin.

Chef Jamie Halsall (left) & David Toscano (right) outside Vine Street

Tell us about the menu ideas you have for Western Road?

Well we don’t want to give it all away but one big improvement will be that we will have a charcoal robata style grill which will mean we can put our Italian spin on great meat, fish and vegetable produce. Look out for dishes like Sussex lamb rump on Castelluccio lentils, celeriac & salsa verde. We’ll also have a prep kitchen downstairs at Western Road that will service both sites which means the types and quality of pasta we will be making is going to get better and better.

Anything else we should look out for?

The private dining room is give us a lot of opportunities to host events with our suppliers – wines & vermouth, meats & cheeses etc. – and long term, we’d like to be able to sell take home packs of our handmade pasta shapes. Watch this space!

When is launch planned?

The restaurant should be built by end of December, with soft openings second week of January and press nights the following week before we open the doors to the public.

Plans for the future?

Right now we want to get this right and give Hove a real Italian that it can be proud of. But we love what we do so we want to keep taking it to as many people as we can so we’ll look for more opportunities in the next few years.

You don’t have to wait until January to sample the delights of Cin Cin. Book your place at their Vine Street Italian Bar & Kitchen by calling 01273 698 813. And be sure to keep up with all the exciting news about their new restaurant by signing up to their newsletter and following them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.